be considered to
describe an unconsciousness of failure to realize the expected) was in
the matter of language. No one on board, not even Harley and Villa,
talked Nalasu's talk. All Jerry's large vocabulary, all his proficiency
in the use of it, which would have set him apart as a marvel beyond all
other dogs in the mastery of speech, was wasted on those of the _Ariel_.
They did not speak, much less guess, the existence of the whiff-whuff
shorthand language which Nalasu had taught him, and which, Nalasu dead,
Jerry alone knew of all living creatures in the world.

In vain Jerry tried it on the lady-god. Sitting squatted on his
haunches, his head bowed forward and held between her hands, he would
talk and talk and elicit never a responsive word from her. With tiny
whines and thin whimperings, with whiffs and whuffs and growly sorts of
noises down in his throat, he would try to tell her somewhat of his tale.
She was all meltingness of sympathy; she would hold her ear so near to
the articulate mouth of him as almost to drown him in the flowing
fragrance of her hair; and yet her brain told her nothing of what he
uttered, although her heart surely sensed his intent.

"Bless me, Husband-Man!" she would cry out. "The Dog is talking. I know
he is talking. He is telling me all about himself. The story of his
life is mine, could I but understand. It's right here pouring into my
miserable inadequate ears, only I can't catch it."

Harley was sceptical, but her woman's intuition guessed aright.

"I know it!" she would assure her husband. "I tell you he could tell the
tale of all his adventures if only we had understanding. No other dog
has ever talked this way to me. There's a tale there. I feel its
touches. Sometimes almost do I know he is telling of joy, of love, of
high elation, and combat. Again, it is indignation, hurt of outrage,
despair and sadness."

"Naturally," Harley agreed quietly. "A white man's dog, adrift among the
anthropophagi of Malaita, would experience all such sensations and, just
as naturally, a white man's woman, a Wife-Woman, a dear, delightful Villa
Kennan woman, can of herself imagine such a dog's experiences and deem
his silly noises a recital of them, failing to recognize them as
projections of her own delicious, sensitive, sympathetic self. The song
of the sea from the lips of the shell--Pshaw! The song oneself makes of
the sea and puts into the shell."

"Just the same--"

"Alwa